Meet Rachel McDonald, a determined writer who has overcome incredible odds to rediscover her passion for creative storytelling. From battling brain damage after a coma at a young age to navigating personal struggles like bipolar disorder and chronic pain, Rachel’s journey has been one of resilience and creativity. In this interview, she shares insights into her writing process, the challenges she faced while crafting her debut novel “Of Darkness and Ruination,” the significance of mythology in her “Star Queen Chronicles” series, and valuable advice for aspiring writers dealing with creative blocks. Join us as we delve into Rachel’s inspiring story and explore the magical worlds she has created through her writing.
Can you share more about your journey from overcoming brain damage to rediscovering your
creative writing ability?
I was 16 when I was in a coma. Despite being declared brain dead at the hospital, I unexpectedly woke up a day later. The doctors declared it a miracle, but when I first woke up it took me a few days to get all my functions back. At first I couldn’t talk or write, couldn’t dress or feed myself. Within a week I was okay physically, but my brain wasn’t. It took another week for hallucinations to stop, which I’ve since learned are fairly common for coma patients. After that point though, I didn’t get much aftercare, so it took a bit for me to realize that I was having issues. First with my short-term memory, and then with the creative part of my brain. I used to love writing, but after that I couldn’t form stories or poems anymore. I went to a neurologist who had me doing exercises to help, but it wasn’t doing much unfortunately.
I went to college and expressed most of my creative love through reading or interior design. I remember having a class where I had to write a memoir, and trying to put that together was so discouraging as words just didn’t come to me the way they used to. I could still write essays and boring things like that, but when it came to writing creatively or for anything fun, in any was just—gone. It took about ten years for my brain to heal really. I’d thought it was gone forever at the time, and it was a huge blow. I tried again here and there throughout the years, just wanting to write and hating that nothing was connecting. That flow that once was so easy and natural for me was broken. It didn’t used to take much for me to sit down and write, and this emptiness I faced
was horrible.
I’ve always had stories in my head. All my life, I’ve seen them like movies flashing across my mind. So not being able to translate them into words, what was such a natural thing for me, was frustrating beyond belief. But when I sat down a couple years ago and tried to write again, I actually cried when words started flowing. It wasn’t as natural as before, and it took some fits and starts. I’d stop and come back here and there. It was actually fanfiction that helped me work some of this out. I was able to sit down and write stories and not worry if they were perfect. And the positive feedback really helped keep my spirits up! I got into romantasy a couple of years ago, and I knew immediately this was the genre for me. So I waited to do anything until I got comfortable writing again. It took about a year of fully writing every day until I felt I was back to a place where I could go, okay, I’m happy with people reading this, maybe now’s the time to fulfill my dreams.
What were some of the challenges you faced during the process of writing “Of Darkness and Ruination”?
Finding time around work was a big one for me. I work a 9-5, so squeezing in writing after work and on breaks was difficult, especially once I got started and inspiration started coming all the time. I just wanted to get it down but was stuck! Learning how to step outside my comfort zone was a big one too. As a writer, you naturally tend toward using certain words and phrases, but you really have to step back and get creative. I often turned to google to find synonyms and antonyms to ensure I wasn’t using the same words constantly.
How did your personal experiences and struggles influence the themes and characters in your
book?
I’m bipolar and have chronic pain thanks to ankylosing spondylitis, and I put a lot of my own struggles into my main character. She deals with feeling rage all the time. From the rage over her circumstances to just feeling it for no good reason, along with swings in her mood she can’t control.
There’s also the hypersexuality aspect she faces, and these are all things that took me years to learn to get under control and affected me most in my teens and early 20’s. I loved getting to explore this in my main character and seeing her journey unfold as she learns and grows and begins to find ways to conquer these things herself. I found it very therapeutic to write and look at those experiences and situations and how they might apply in this fantasy setting! I managed to find a way to deal with the drudgery and annoyance of chronic pain, all thanks to a fantasy reason as well. The next book will also deal with some PTSD themes, that will take from my experiences dealing with it after my coma. Then of course, there’s the manipulative men many women unfortunately deal with.
From gaslighting to being pressured into sex, I think many of us inevitably face these experiences, and looking at how those same situations might manifest in a different world, I found that though the world may change, and magic might exist, it isn’t much of a stretch to see those same experiences taking shape. We see this in a broad way throughout the story as well, how different women all handle things in different ways. I think it’s important to highlight how we all handle those situations differently, and not judging others for how they survive is so important!
What lessons have you learned from your journey that you believe aspiring writers or creatives
could benefit from?
Don’t give up. Don’t think you’re not enough, or could never do this. Who I am? Someone nobody that wanted to write a book, that’s who. I kept pushing onward despite any setbacks and didn’t let them stop me. I was determined this would happen. We are all our worst critics. Don’t talk yourself out of it. I think it’s incredibly important to not focus on what other people are doing. Every writer is an individual with their own way of doing things. We see a lot of “this is the way” or “do this” and the truth is, everyone is trying to figure this out themselves. There’s no one “right” answer. If you need to jump around while writing and not write linearly, do that! If you need to edit as you draft, then go for it. Just because someone tells you that isn’t the way to write, that just means it’s not the way they do it.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help either! I had no idea how to go about this and started asking other authors questions on their posts online. I made some wonderful friends and connections this way, a group of women who help and support one another, and cheerleaders along the way. Having
this support to turn to when I’m lost has been so incredible. So never be afraid to reach out.
Can you discuss the significance of mythology and celestial imagery in “The Star Queen
Chronicles” series?
I’ve always been obsessed with mythology and celestial imagery. Anything that contains them I just eat up! I took a lot from myths all around the world for my story, and I tried to leave little nods all throughout to the myths that have inspired me. From names of characters to places, there’s not one thing untouched by it. I have oracles and seers like ancient Greece, ruins and altars like the druids had, festivals and ceremonies that come from all cultures and taken in bits to really develop my world into something tangible and deep. Myths have always been how people have explained the world, and I also wanted to bring that into my story, and created a mythology for them that’s going to a play a very big part of the story. We see bits of it in book one, but it’s going to play an even larger role in later books, and this really set the stage! And of course, the pantheon of gods and goddesses I’ve created have taken from myth have been reconfigured and merged from different cultures! I’ve always loved the moon and stars especially, and the dark versus light theme is one I can never get enough of. The interplay between those with dark magic and those with light magic, that push and pull, how they balance one another as opposites, it’s such an incredible theme to me and ties so innately into celestial imagery. I wanted to take those two aspects and put them together. I created celestial kingdoms, and looked at different ways to do it, but the Night/Day, Sunrise/Sunset, Dawn/Dusk configuration was really the best fit for this world. I get to play with different celestial elements in each kingdom, and how those come forth for each royal family. But I also get to explore how their different magics might manifest based on what time of day their kingdom represents. It was so much fun putting it together! And it gave me the best stage of bringing forth lots of celestial goodness with love interests who represent light vs dark, and then tie that back into the theme of balance and chaos. I found it fascinating to tie these all together!
What advice would you give to individuals who are dealing with creative blocks or setbacks in
their artistic pursuits?
Don’t beat yourself up about it, number one. Setbacks and blocks will always happen. As someone who dealt with an incredibly prolonged one, find other ways to spark your creativity! There’s always ways. Sometimes, you just need to step back a bit and go find your passion again. Try another creative endeavor, or just take a break. Sometimes, inspiration will hit when you least expect it. Forcing it will only lead to frustration and uninspired work.
How did reading “A Court of Thorns and Roses” and other works contribute to shaping your writing style and storytelling approach?
A Court of Thorns and Rose was really what I call my gateway drug to romantasy. I devoured so many books in the genre after that! It really helped me find my niche. I’ve always been someone who needs romance to get invested, and I’ve always loved fantasy like Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and shows of that nature, though they always left me disappointed on the romance side. Romantasy really gave me the perfect combination, where I know I won’t be disappointed as I’ll get a happily ever after between the characters, I’ll have a couple to root for through their trials, and still get all the fantasy elements I love. So it helped put me into the right framework for me. I took a bit of inspiration from all the romantasy books I’ve loved. I also used them to look and say, okay, now where do I want to differ. Looking at ACOTAR, I love the kingdom set up, but what I saw again and again, through many romantasies, was the worlds felt a bit small. We see these grand kingdoms, but they have one large city. Or we know it’s a magic based city, but we don’t see much it. I wanted to create a huge world with many cities per kingdom and small towns between, with large royal families! I think it’s why my book has been called a cross between ACOTAR and GOT, because I have the more sprawling set up of GOT with the romantasy lens of ACOTAR. ACOTAR also didn’t explore the kingdom set up much and how the politics might go, which is something I wanted to explore in my own novel. But I can honestly say without ACOTAR and other romantasy novels, my book wouldn’t exist.
What inspires you to continue writing and exploring new ideas within the fantasy romance genre?
I find new ideas will spark all kinds of other new ideas off of them that keep me interested and wanting to write. Whenever I read a book, I find myself thinking what if this happened, or this happened, and wanting to explore that vein of the story. This often leads me to unexpected ideas! I find writing to be a great challenge. You’re constantly looking at a story and going, well what could happen here? How could this affect things in the world, or how could this character’s choices snowball? Exploring character journey’s is really where this shines though. I love being able to see a character grow and change, and seeing how events impact them. When writing the FMC for my current series, she has a great deal of learning to do, and she’s in circumstances that don’t allow her to really explore who she is at first. Following that journey and writing each stage of it is so interesting to me!
Can you share any upcoming projects or plans for “The Star Queen Chronicles” series or other
creative endeavors you’re working on?
Absolutely! The Star Queen Chronicles is going to be a trilogy, following Asteria’s journey and splitting it into three distinct books that each have a theme to them. I have plans for a spin off that will take place between books two and three, and will tie into the grand finale of book three in The Star Queen Chronicles! I hope to be able to explore the world further. Because I wanted a really flushed out world, I have tons of side characters and other continents and myths that I could explore if there’s interest. There’s one involving the story of the vampires I would love to be able to do. I’m working on getting book one made into an audiobook now as well, so I’m really excited for that! I have some other series ideas waiting in the wings, as well, but my focus is definitely on
Of Darkness and Ruination (The Star Queen Chronicles Book 1) https://a.co/d/eEp4Krs
https://www.rachelfallonauthor.com
My website, will have an Ingram direct purchase link for physical copies after release:
TikTok:
